COMPLETED: Quaker Green

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Across the street, another landlord is undertaking a $1 million-plus renovation of its plaza, which includes a pet store and dance studio. And a new restaurant is scheduled to open, tentatively called the Elmwood Bistro.

"I can't begin to tell you what a tremendous lift these condominiums are going to be to Elmwood center, and it's already started," Rowlson said. "It's everything we were hoping for, and it's all coming together at once."

This is an excellent project for Elmwood and it's great to see the area finally getting some attention and investment. I find it interesting that the developers were shocked at the level of opposition in West Hartford.

But even as construction continues at the Quaker Green condo project, it is still meeting resistance.

After years of legal wrangling, the state Supreme Court has said it will consider an appeal by a group of Elmwood residents who filed a lawsuit objecting to the council's approval of the condos, as well as the installation of a chain pharmacy nearby. The case was dismissed by the Superior Court in two rulings in 2004 and 2005. The residents had also pursued the matter in a separate Superior Court appeal, which also was dismissed, and they unsuccessfully petitioned the town's zoning board of appeals.

The condominium developer, Ginsburg Development Cos., based in New York, at one point in 2005 slowed construction on the condominiums because of the lawsuit, but stepped up work once again in 2006.

Martin Ginsburg, president of Ginsburg, said the company was surprised by the level of protest from neighbors "who we thought would welcome us because of the work we'd done before," including The Greens at Gillette Ridge in Bloomfield and The Goodwin Estates in Hartford.

"We were more optimistic about it than the way it turned out," Ginsburg said.